I figured I'd make a thread for those of us who would like to turn to Massassi for help in the holiday gift shopping this year.

Fortunately, I actually got a chunk of shopping out of the way myself. However, I was considering purchasing a beer-making kit for my sister and her husband, as they're the Michael McLongname of my family and I think they'd enjoy trying something like making their own beer out. Now I know there was a thread long ago about Flirbnic making his own mead here:

http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?p=1056806

And there was some talk about it there, but it's old and I'm rock stupid on what would be best to get.

My other gift idea is to turn one of my non-functional NES systems into something else for either my best friend/roommate or a gamer girl I rather like, but I'm not sure what (and since I'm not technically-minded, my options are limited to "something with explicit photo instructions" or something not technical).

Thanks for any help you all can give!

If I (Secretly) upgrade my parents laptop to a solid state drive (Don't worry I'll keep the other drive in the second bay and make sure to get an image for backup), would the performance increase be noticable? It's an older C2D laptop with only 2 gigs of ram. I'm thinking of making that 4 along with a cheap SSD.

I'd tell you what I want to buy, but one of you might get it before I can. >:-(

http://amzn.com/w/16UJT1XWRIKLG


>.>
*cough*

I'm going to guess it would be a significant preformance increase, only because *most* laptop harddrives arent speed demons to begin with. The majority still use 5400 rpm instead of 7200 rpm drives. Good luck.

It's just an idea as of now, I would love to see them wake up and realize it's running Win7 with 2 more gigabytes of RAM and boots instantly.

Oh, and as for the NES-into-something else, the rest of the internet pretty much already has done "DVD player" and "PC" so suggestions other than those would be appreciated -- the less technical-know-how needed, the better, please.

First I should mention that I am generally biased against gift-giving—I dislike both giving and receiving them, particularly on occasions like Christmas—so my view on the matter is likely skewed and not at all applicable to real people.

If you're giving someone a beer kit, the concerns I would have about whether they'd appreciate it are as follows:
Making mead, beer, or wine takes a lot of work, especially when you've never done it before. If you give someone a kit, you're assuming they want to put forth that effort.
Depending on the kit, there may be a requirement for all sorts of extra equipment that isn't included in order to make the beer.
If you aren't as knowledgeable as they are about beer, you might end up picking a kit for a variety that they don't much care for.

I could be way off with my concerns. If they've expressed interest before in making beer, it could be a fantastic gift.

Nope, those are valid concerns!

1) I imagine it does take a lot of work, but both my sister and husband I feel like to venture into this sort of thing. Still, it is something they've never done before, so I would want something equivalent of a "beginner's set."
2) Also why I need other people's help -- I want to make sure that I get anything else I would need according to people who actually know what they're talking about, such as I would presume you.
3) I am definitely not as knowledgeable, but to my knowledge, they like a wide variety of beer. Wine and mead not so much, but definitely beer. I would still likely aim for anything standard, which I imagine would be the case for any "beginner" set anyway, though I could be wrong.

Also, I understand your biased against the gift giving and receiving process, but your help is appreciated all the same.

I love how the Xbox Live 12 Month Subscription has been reduced from $59.99 to... $59.99!

WHAT A DEAL! But I thought they were $50, not $60.

careful what you wish for there... someone might take that a way you never expected

but on the topic of NES into something else you could always attempt to convert the NES into an alarm clock now if there are detailed instructions on this floating around i'm not sure but i'd assume it would be among the easier things to do with an NES

Hahaha! Point taken.

The alarm clock was one of the few mods that stood out to me, and it's something I'm contemplating, as is making it into a toaster/toaster oven. I should probably stick with something more "form" and less "function" though, given my skill set, but we'll see.

Fill it with cement. Doorstop!

Sadly, this is likely not far from the extent of my skills. The shame...

I haven't yet had any experience with making beer, and the process of making beer is a bit different from that of making mead or wine. So, I would suggest you find a brewing supply store and ask someone who works there for advice. You'd have to visit such a store anyways to find the appropriate products. Usually, from what I've seen, such stores also do brewing on the premises, so the employees there should (hopefully) be quite knowledgeable.